HORRY COUNTY, SC (WMBF) Five people are charged with assault and battery by a mob, after Horry County Police say they beat up a 16-year-old boy.

Roy Jacob Crigger, 20, Patrick Ammons, Scott Parks, Sean Parks, all18-years-old, and Harley McQuade Sutton, 17, are facing various degrees of the charge. Ammons was arrested on the day of the alleged crime on Nov. 9. The others have been arrested since then, with the last arrest on Friday, Nov. 18.

"I thought I was going to die, and that's something I'm going to remember for the rest of my life," Dakodia Strack said.

He said he was with a girl outside of the Socastee Recreation Center on Nov. 9 when, he says, Ammons and the four others showed up. Dakodia believes the girl and Ammons were once in a relationship.

Photos Dakodia and his mother Katrina Strack shared showed he was beaten so badly his eyes were swollen shut. He was also bleeding from the nose and had other cuts and bruises.

He said the group beat him until a woman saw what was happening and drove up honking her horn.

"If it wasn't for you, he probably could have been beat to death," Katrina Strack said as a direct statement to the woman. "I'm very grateful. You saved my son's life."

Strack said Dakodia is a good student who has won lots of academic awards. She showed some of his previous certificates of honor on Sunday to the WMBF crew. Dakodia wants to go into the military and law enforcement, but she worries his injuries could jeopardize that.

"Up to another six weeks, if the bones shift, it could rupture his eye," Strack said. "If he blows his nose, sucks through a straw, sneezes too hard, the eye itself could come loose from the orbital socket and he could lose his eye."

So she hopes prosecutors will take the case seriously.

"The violence seems to be escalating on a yearly basis," Strack said. "It just seems to be more violent and more violent. Nobody's stopping to think about the consequences of what they're doing to that person they may be attacking or hurting, or themselves or their future."

"A lot of people get a slap on the wrist, and they don't learn, and they'll go back out and do it again. It's time to bring the fist down and say 'enough is enough'," claims Strack.

Dakodia said the attack changed his whole outlook on life.

"I'll never look at things quite the same way, and I'm okay with that," he said. "Everyone who [hears about] this, I want them to remember life is beautiful. Don't forget that."

Ammons posted bail and was released from jail on house arrest. The others remained at the J. Reuben Long Detention Center as of Sunday afternoon.

Strack said the solicitors office has not decided on when or if the case will go to trial.